Niland V Dagda Debate

(Yeah I know, video quality isn't great. My view finder isn't working on my camera and buying a new one isn't in the budget right now. Maybe I'll issue bonds to pay for a new one)

City Rep Cortney Niland and challenger Josh Dagda debated on Saturday morning in front of an audience at the West El Paso Republican Women.

Dagda came out swinging against his opponent basically starting off right from his opening remarks. 

Here's the video, watch it first and then continue to read my analysis. Also, I have some post-debate interviews of each of the candidates in which I cover a couple of important issues raised in the debate. 

I have the benefit of watching the debate a few times before everyone else sees the video I post, so I often have a different perspective after seeing it live the first time.

My first impression is that Josh Dagda, while still not a great communicator, has come a LONG way from just a couple of weeks ago. He appeared much more polished, much more prepared, and a little less awkward than the first time I saw him. 

He began the debate with an impressive offense against Niland. 

As the debate wore on though, Representative Niland started to expose some weaknesses in Dagda. Dagda has been worked with and you could tell. His overall presentation was much stronger and he had some pretty good lines of attack ready to go after his opponent. I also found out WHO was working with him, which is interesting but if you listen close, not surprising. But that's another post for another time...

But what Dagda lacked, was specificity. Dagda definitely said the right thing, pun intended, to the Republican crowd and they were clearly on his side. As the debate continued Niland began to make note of the fact that he said the right things, but didn't offer specifics.

A key example is Dagda's theme throughout the debate. He mentioned several times about cutting taxes and reducing spending, but never offered examples, even after being challenged by Niland, of what services he would propose cutting or what spending he would eliminate. 

I think a key point in the debate was when the two disagreed about an affidavit having to do with the city emails lawsuit. Dagda said Niland didn't sign one. Niland says she did. So that either did happen or it didn't. Someone isn't telling the truth, so I'm going to get to the bottom of it. 

Stay tuned for that one...

Dagda got a little carried away with playing to the crowd. There were a few times in the video you'll notice he backed away from the podium because he was expecting an applause line and it didn't come. 

The people that thought Dagda was going to embarrass himself were all wrong. He didn't embarrass himself and had a strong than expected showing. I think he lost the debate, but overall, Dagda certainly exceeded my expectations even if it started to become one-sided toward the end. One person who was at the debate came up to me afterward and said, "I'm sure glad they finally stopped the water boarding he was getting from Niland". 

The debate ended with an opportunity for both candidates to pose questions to one another. Both of them totally messed up that part. I don't think either of them were expecting that opportunity so Dagda was confused and came up with something on the fly. Niland tossed Dagda a nice big fat softball that he ripped over the fence.